The Darkest Hearts of Men
by Sphered-Rhyme
Summary: Lassiter is in for the long haul this time. He's up against someone who's ready to tear him apart, right down to his soul. ***Rated M for graphic scenes of torture, other violence, vivid detail of PTSD and panic attacks, and other future terrors I'll be inflicting on our poor head detective.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Pysch or any of the lovely characters from the show. I only wish I could lay any claim to them! I only claim my own OCs, and nothing else!

This is going to be the first in a long installment of the story "The Darkest Hearts of Men". I cannot thank enough the two people who've helped me in what I've written thus far: silverluna and redwolffclaw. Thank you two so much!

I Hope you enjoy the first chapter, I know I'm loving it!

 _What the hell happened? And what in God's name is that damned beeping?_

Lassiter's head was reeling, and he debated for what felt like hours before he finally decided to open his eyes, an action he immediately regretted, when his line of sight was flooded with blinding light; the beeping inexplicably increased. He groaned as he squeezed his eyes shut once more, forcing himself to rely on his other senses for the time being. He cocked his head towards the sound of the beeping, and focused in on the slowing rhythm. He took a deep breath, calming himself, becoming centered. He slowed his breathing, really focusing in on the source of the beeping…which was…slowing down?

He shook his head, clearing his mind. _Focus! What else do you know?_ He began testing each of his muscles individually, and felt satisfied that, at least as far as he could tell, nothing was injured. He tried lifting his hand to his face to access the pounding in his head, and he received awareness that his arm was tied to the arm of the chair he was sitting in. He tried his other arm, and his legs; nothing.

He couldn't move.

His eyes shot open once more, his brain ignoring the pain that the blinding light brought once more. He looked down at himself: his arms and legs were strapped to the arms and legs of a white, metal chair by thick leather bands, and his shirt was open, allowing him to see wires stuck to his chest. He traced the wires to a monitor a few feet from himself-a heart monitor. Panic began its slow creep back into Carlton as he took in the full magnitude of the situation: he was completely restrained in this chair. The stark white light threatening to puncture his retinas illuminated what appeared to be an immaculately clean clinic room. To the left of Carlton, there was a long, white card table that held various trays full of surgical tools, and…maybe a defibrillator?

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Immediately in front of him, there was another chair, just like the one he was in, white and metal. Beyond that there was about five feet of shiny, white flooring, and a white wall, with a white door, and above the door, a white security camera. Everything was white, and bright, and immaculate. And Carlton couldn't help the shudder that ran down his spine.

In the midst of taking in the rest of his white surroundings, he picked up footsteps and bickering beyond the white door. The sounds got progressively louder, until it peaked, and it fell silent. He heard the click of a sliding bolt in the door, and two men wearing masks came through the door.

 _The same pricks from last night._ Carlton's jaw clenched, and his lips pressed together as the memory of the previous night washed over him. His lips turned up at the corner when he saw that one of them was struggling to keep his gait normal as he walked. _At least I didn't make it easy for them._ The memory of his miniature triumph was enough for Carlton to steel his mind, back into the mindset of the cocky, head detective of the SBPD that he was every day. He followed the two men as they came towards him. The uninjured one wavered in his advance; Carlton narrowed his eyes, staring him down. The gaze that met his own was not what he was expecting. They were nervous, scared, and searched his own eyes for forgiveness. With a closer look at what little the mask allowed him to see, he realized he was looking at a kid, barely out of high school, if that. The boy broke eye contact with Carlton to shoot a glance at the other man, before diverting his path to the white card table with the various trays of instruments. The head detective turned his gaze to the second of the two, the one he'd managed to clip the night before. He threw the man a smug half-smile, stopping the man in his advance.

"Somethin' ticklin' you over there?"

Carlton let out a small snort, "Oh, just enjoying the view of a piece of scum in pain." The man lunged at him, covering the few feet of space in one bound. Grabbing Carlton's throat with a large hand, he shoved his face barely an inch away from Carlton's, the hot breath from him eliciting an involuntary shudder from Carlton. The hot, sour breath threatened to choke him, and he could feel his throat trying to gag crushed under the man's grasp.

"You think it's funny? Well, laugh while you can, pig, cause from here on out, I'm the one that's goin' to be havin' all the fun." His voice was deep, pouring from his mouth like thick venom, enveloping Carlton in a sinister fog. The man's expression turned from anger to amusement as he cupped a hand to his ear and turned his head toward the heart monitor, "Hear that, pig? I'm already getting' to you, and the real fun ain't even started yet."

Carlton jerked his head from the man's grip and silently cursed the monitor for betraying his fear. He was going to have to be more careful about controlling his reactions. The man continued to watch him as he steadied himself before lowering down in the chair opposite Carlton. _His injury must have flared up after rushing me. Sick fuck._ He was inwardly satisfied, but was careful to keep that emotion hidden, as any emotional shift obviously had an effect on the man. The boy now made his way over to Carlton, wires in hand. Carlton broke his glare with the other man to stare at him. _Kid or not, he's still a criminal,_ he reminded himself, pushing down any sympathy he had for the boy. He was hesitant in his approach, pausing before he hooked up the wires onto two probes attached to the middle and lower left of Carlton's chest. They watched each other for a moment, when his partner broke their silence. "Everything ready yet?" The boy jumped slightly, whisking around to face the man, "Yes bro, whenever you're ready."

A sick grin slowly spread over the brother's face, his eyes practically glowing with anticipation, sending more involuntary shivers down Carlton's spine. Carlton immediately felt panic at the forefront of his mind, but decided to mask the feeling by throwing some verbal jabs at the man. _While I still can…_

"Do you get some sort of sick pleasure out of this? Is that what this is all about?"

The man sat up straight, bending forward slightly. "Why, detective, where are my manners? You _are_ the guest of honor after all!" He bellowed, raising his arms in a mock welcome.

"Let's get the inter-ductions out'the way, hm? You may call me Akhos, and my brother 'ere, Ania. _This_ is my lecture hall, and _you-"he_ emphasized with a pointed gesture straight at Lassiter's chest, "Mr. Head Dee-tehk-tiv Carlton Lassiter, will be out grand com-pan-dium - the chief reference guide for all members of the esteemed SBPD."

Lassiter had unconsciously allowed his expression to fall into one of confused annoyance. Who was this guy? _Akhos and Ania?_ Seriously? He read like a villain straight from a cheesy mystery novel. "What on God's green earth are you talking about? Am I supposed to be taking this seriously?"

Carlton couldn't help a swell of amusement when he saw that his captor's face dropped from his previous grandeur and contorted into one of rage and annoyance. "I assure you, Detective, there ain't no reason t' doubt me." He kept eye contact with the man while doing his best to hide the shivers that were being sent through his body. He was doing his best to try and keep an appearance of nonchalance, throwing around his usual interrogation banter, but one look over to the kid caused him to pause his mockery of the other man. The sheer panic that was on the kid's face, in his very eyes as he ever-so-slightly shook his head at him, eyes pleading with him to stop his attack. But whatever warning Carlton felt, he knew that he could not allow this man gain the edge over him.

Carlton rolled his eyes, "Oh, well, since you've assured me . . ." His gaze settled onto Akhos. "What sad, obscure symbolism am I supposed to be drawing from that name you've given yourself? Hmm? Akhos? Because I'm drawing a blank here. My 'pathetic-over-inﬂated-ego-psychopath-lingo' is a little rusty." He raised n eyebrow at Akhos, whose face was frozen with rage. But, his face fell, sighing and shaking his head. Carlton's stomach twisted as the man's face drew into a ghoulish sneer, voice returning to a venomous drawl. "Oooh Detective, you've got so much ﬁre in you. That's going to make this much more fun. But alas," Akhos paused for a moment, his whole body stiffening as he shrugged in mock sincerity, "you interrupted my welcome, and that, you'll deeply regret. But all in good time. Everything, in good time." He snickered callously, "And you," he added, "have nothing but time to spare."

The man stood, confidently, making his way around Carlton, with no hint of the injury that previously hindered him. Carlton averted his gaze, steeling his eyes on the white wall in front of him, jaw clenched. When he was behind Carlton, he steadied himself on the back of his chair, leaning over him as he reached in his pocket and pulled out a small knife. Carlton emotions were deadlocked in a race between his fear and his rationality as the man's looming physical presence began to overwhelm him. He tried to appear as undisturbed as possible, his steel blue eyes never straying from their ﬁxed position on the wall in front of him, jaw clenched tight.

"Simple things, knives." Carlton could hear him licking his lips as he caressed the sheathed blade. "They've remained more or less unchanged throughout the ages. Become more sophisticated, sure, sure, but the actual utility of them?" He cocked his head and let out a small huff, turning his transﬁxion onto Lassiter. "Man's been using 'em for thousands of years to hunt down their prey—t' make 'em . . . squeal." He drew out that last word; savored it.

 _Do not give into him. Do not let him get to you. It's exactly what he wants._ Carlton tried desperately to keep his training in the forefront of his mind, to harden and ignore the fear gaining ground inside him. His breathing began to quicken, and he clenched his jaw shut even tighter, feeling his teeth grind together. The man came around to Carlton's side, pushing his body into him, his face right in front of his own, his gaze transferred from the knife, to directly to Carlton's eyes.

"However, only recently, within the past hundred years or so, have we gained the medical knowledge to make these truly effective in the art of information extraction. We now know exactly where to cut, how deep, how long, while still keeping a person alive and conscious." He watched the ﬁre dancing behind Akhos's eyes. No longer able to ward off the internal feelings of dread as he recognized the dark determination behind his captor's eyes.

"You want—information from me?" Carlton couldn't help the slight waver in his voice, and he cursed himself for stammering over his words.

The man turned, directly over him now, slithering his knife to Carlton's belly, the hot breath in his ear making Carlton cringe as he drawled in a low purr— "Oh Detective, you just wish that's what I wanted."

Carlton gasped as he felt the knife pierce his belly.

 **TBC**

I promise in the next chapter, things will begin to make sense! I should be updating every day or so for the next week!

Please leave me a review if you've read this and felt anything about it! I'd really love feedback from you!


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Pysch or any of the lovely characters from the show. I only wish I could lay any claim to them! I only claim my own OCs, and nothing else!

 _"Murder is fascinating and frightening; it is the great taboo, the one crime, perhaps, that every culture in every age has condemned as the Numero Uno offense against society, the tribe, the clan, the individual."_ _Nelson DeMille_

Done.

That was the only word for this feeling.

Utter exhaustion leading to a total void of any and all caring.

This was it. He was going to quit the force.

Pack up his desk. Turn in his badge.

He. Was. Done.

He wasn't going to, of course, but damn it if 2 weeks of 3-4 hours of sleep each night weren't a hair shy of forcing him over the edge. 2 weeks of burglaries escalating to homicides almost as quickly as they began, and no leads to speak of. The night had held hope for longer sleep, as neither he nor O'hara had made any breaks in the case, but it was interrupted by a late night call from the Chief alerting them to yet another burglary/homicide.

As he shifted into park in front of the latest victim's house, he silently promised to catch the one (or ones) responsible for these crimes by today's end as he slumped down into the driver's seat and let his head lean back into the headrest. A droning ache had taken up residence just behind his forehead, not yet a migraine, but achy and constant enough to put him in a worse mood than usual. Sighing, he brought a hand to his face in an attempt to subdue the ache for a few moments.

 _TAP TAP TAP_ "Lassifrass!"

 _Oh, seven hells, not today._ His face tightened, eyes rolling back as he abandoned his moment of peace and shoved open the door, intentionally right into Spencer's shin.

"OW! Lassie, I'm hurt. I suppose that answers the question that Gus and I never need to ask you, as we always know the answer!"

He glared at Spencer, towering over the younger man. Spencer cocked his head in his own smug way, ever-smiling back at him, "Well, seeing as I'm obviously the wizard that brings you your brain and its marvelous sense of humor one day, I'll ask anyway; how are you today Mr. Scarecrow?"

"Spencer. You have exactly 3 seconds to explain to me why the hell you're here and why in hell you think that pestering me is your best chance of making it through the rest of this day alive."

"Whoa whoa whoa, Lassie, I know you're not a morning person, but some compassion?" The pleading face of the fake-psychic switched to one of mock-apology as he watched the Detective turn his morning glare up to a fair 9. "Okay, okay, I can't believe we still have to do this every time" he put his finger up to his head and plastered a smug look on his face, "Psychic? I felt a great disturbance on this street while Gus and I were taking our early morning Churro run."

Lassiter shot his glare to Guster, begging the other man to give him a reason to murder his friend.

"It's true, you see Churros? Neither do I." Gus practically spat while trying to 'help' his friend's case.

"Point 2! Come now Lassidophilus, I beg you, you _try_ and _fail_ to bug me, and we're a happy family."

His face fell as he listened to the two of them, standing there in an exhausted state of annoyance. Yep, there was the migraine he knew his day was missing.

"Shawn, I think you mean 'Point B'."

"What?"

"Well you said, 'A-you can't believe we do this every time', and then you said, 'Point 2' and made that stupid rhyme."

"I've heard it both ways"

"ENOUGH!" Lassiter bellowed at the two men before him, his hands flying into the air of their own accord, before he took back control of his anger, throwing up a smile of fake sincerity. "You know, Spencer, Guster, usually, I'm less than excited to run into you two idiots at my crime scenes. Though for some reason it's always unavoidable." He admitted, grabbing his two pests and leading them away from the crime scene, as he walked between the two of them.

"But today? Oh, I'm somewhere between homicidal and murderous."

"Aren't those the sam-"

"Shawn! The man's going to kill us! He's got the crazy in his eyes…" Gus's voice lowered to a whisper on the last part.

"Oh Gus, relax! Classy Lassy here would never kill us! He's just not ready to share with us his true feelings of-"

"Oh today I'd listen to your friend, Spencer." Smirking as he stopped and shoving the two of them forward, having brought them to McNab. "Keep these two idiots out of my crime scene McNab. I don't care what they tell you-They get in, you lose your job, understood?"

Mcnab's face paled and he seemed to be frozen into place. "Y-yes sir, D-Detective." he stuttered out meekly with a slight nod.

Carlton raised his eyebrows and smirked at the two as he turned and walked back towards the house and into the crime scene, content with his small morning victory.

Inside the house lay a fresh hive of activity, the ident unit already having arrived, and uniforms scurrying around to get out of the way now that Lassiter had arrived. He spotted O'Hara speaking with one of the ident guys when he rounded the corner into the living room/crime scene. Taking a deep breath, he surveyed the room.

Despite his eye-rolling at Guster's usual behavior at the sight of dead bodies, often noting him as lacking the fortitude to withstand the shock of even everyday life, underneath the candor, he fought the very same reactions. Through the lens of the TV, most people's view of crime scenes is skewed, as is their view on how easy it is for even the most seasoned of officers to process crime scenes involving the dead, some even believing that the dead look 'peaceful'. Trying to dress live actors into corpses still allows those corpses a semblance of life; they don't look 'dead'. Compared to real bodies, especially those of the murdered, the look of true death is enough to push one into absolute positivity in the belief of a human soul, something that even a child innately recognizes.

Even as the senior detective in the department, he still fights back the nausea, the sour, bitter tang rising in the back of his throat, the desire to be anywhere but there. And each time a new crime scene is processed and stowed away in his mind, the theatre turns off the lights to everything else but the memories of every other murder, homicide, suicide, accident, or manslaughter scene that he's ever witnessed in agonizing detail, every grizzly component, down to the sinew of each exposed muscle in the slit throat of a young girl.

Carlton separates his memories from the picture in front of him, taking another deep breath, putting on his mask of indifference as he slowly makes his way towards his partner and the bodies. She dismissed the other officer and turned to him, her usually bright blue eyes bore a look more akin to a clouded horizon before a storm. Though he knew that she had had the same amount or less sleep as him, she still managed to look as put together and professional as always, the only tell the slight puffing under her eyelids. Her perky attitude and appearance the perfect juxtaposition to his gloomy mood. He'd never understood how she did it; he hadn't even had the time to shave in the past day, his stubble growing into quite a bit more than a 5 o'clock shadow.

"Good morning Lassiter." She greeted him with her usual perky demeanor.

He huffed, shaking his head ever so slightly at her bright attitude. "What have we got O'hara?"

"Two victims; male and female. The female has been ID'ed as Jennifer Gale, and the male's name is Kyle Martin. The house belongs to Ms. Gale." He walked over, bent down next to the two corpses as she spoke. "It looks to be the same M.O. as the other burglaries- wallets emptied, most valuables from the rooms gone, and the victims—" "Executed." He declared grimly, a hand going to his furrowed brow as he fought to abate the memories of the previous burglary/homicides flashing to the forefront of his brain, "They've gone from burglary, to manslaughter, to now straight-up murder; in two weeks. They're escalating quickly."

"Yes." His partner stated in a bleak exhalation.

His hesitation is seen only by her. His partner reads him better than anyone, including, though he'd never outright admit this, himself. She sees every hesitation, every minute twitch that betrays he's fighting to turn away and run from the abhorrent scene before them. He feels the bile rise again in his throat as he looks more closely at the execution wounds. The male appeared to have been shot point blank in the back of the head, though there didn't appear to be any powder residue around the wound. The woman had suffered a much more grisly fate. "Deep laceration to the larynx," Lassiter shuffled sideways around to the side of her body, keeping a wide berth around the already too-wide pool of blood around the victims. "Possible signs of a struggle -at least she put up a fight."

Sighing once more as he stood up straight, blinking rapidly as the blood rushed to his head and staving off any other outward signs of his exhaustion, he looked around at the other aspects of the scene. He regarded that the crimson pool was smeared around the woman and that there were…bloody paw prints? He looked at O'Hara, only then noticing the barking that had been occurring since he got there. "O'Hara" he growled, "Why do I hear barking at my crime scene?" His lips pursing as he nodded his head towards her, a signal for her to show him the problem.

She rolled her eyes and led him to the back of the house, following the paw prints, the barking intensifying as they went further. There was an officer posted outside of a closed door that the barking seemed to be emanating from.

"Officer," He started through clenched teeth, "is there any particular reason there is still a dog at my crime scene?"

"Uhm, well…"

Lassiter raised his eyebrows and stepped closer towards the officer, "Yes? I'm waiting for my answer."

"Well sir, you see. Uhm, no one could handle him, and animal control hasn't arrived yet. I-It was all we could do to get her into this room; she was wild, lunging at anyone who came near her!"

"You're telling me, that none of the fine officers of the SBPD could handle this _girl's_ pet?" The barking intensified at the detective's raised voice.

"Detective Lassiter!" O'Hara hissed at his remark.

"Fine. I'll take care of it myself." He shook off his jacket, throwing it at the trembling young officer. Lassiter ripped open the door, glaring down at the dog. The dog continued its barking; she was much larger than Lassiter had anticipated, a large, all black German Shepherd from the looks of her. She remained standing, but did not lunge at him. They remained locked in a stare until the dog looked away, trotting over to lassiter and sitting next to his feet, looking up at him and whining. He rubbed the back of his neck and looked behind him to O'Hara, her mouth open with her hands grazing her upper lip. He leaned his right leg cautiously into the dog, and flinched slightly as the dog put a paw on him. He scraped his hand through his hair and then leaned his arm down to pat the dog's head, the dog pressing her head into Lassiter's palm in response. Juliet let out a snort, and then coughed to try and cover up her laughing. Lassiter shot her an annoyed look, and she tried to quell her laughter. Kneeling down to the dog's level, rubbing the sides of her cheeks as she whined excitedly, Lassiter checked her tags and groaned, throwing his head backwards.

"What's wrong?" Juliet asked, having finally put a lid on her laughing fit.

"Her name."

"What about it?"

"It's Lassie."

Juliet couldn't help but burst into another fit of roaring laughter.

 **TBC**


End file.
